We got to move these refrigerators, we got to move these color TVs
Looky here, look out
I shoulda learned to play the guitar
I shoulda learned to play them drums

It does sound crazy!

New strikers are definitely exciting. I always get nervous and desperate for them to get off the mark early. New strikers can be at one end or the other of a successful transfer because what they do is intrinsically linked to success of the team more so than any other position I think. 10 average players and a top class striker can do something - I don't think you can do that with any other position.

Dan Ballard looks like he's making a move to Burnley (working under Kompany). It will be interesting to see what the fee is? I'd expect under £5m.

I saw City sold one of their young GK who had been on loan at Portsmouth I think, sold him for £15m. Liverpool and Chelsea regularly also get top whack for their unwanted youth team players, we need to get better at selling them at the right time

Few reports saying we've made a 55m euro offer for Raphinha with 15m euro in add ons. Waiting Leeds response

From Ornstein:
Marseille keen to sign Nuno Tavares on loan & Arsenal will consider sanctioning 22yo left-back’s temporary exit if they manage to recruit in defence - Lisandro Martinez of Ajax the priority target

https://www.arsenal.com/news/jordi-osei ... vfl-bochum
Expect this to be a fairly nominal fee

Reading this now. Nuts right. Total 70m bid. We are going hard

Thing is he’s likely to have 3 of his international team mates with us also. Surely makes it more attractive

I suppose this isn’t too bad in Sterling but still huge money

https://www.football365.com/news/leeds- ... ts-arsenal

Good he's already informed. We done.

Balance is important, but a decent set of players for rotation is also needed obviously.

Not on the Arsenal official website.

Marseille and Atalanta both keen on Tavares on loan. If we can bring in this Martinez guy and get Tavares on loan to a decent club like those two that would be ideal.

Jesus and Raphinha alongside Vieira does make a very flexible and exciting attack, I feel the only thing it misses is a taller more physical striker.

I could see there might be a possibility that Xhaka leaves if someone like Tielemans comes in. I'd love to have them both.

I also have a feeling (not this summer) - but maybe in the near future if we did need to balance the books then Emile Smith Rowe might be a player that we would consider letting go if we received a ridiculous offer. I'd rather we kept him and get to see him across a full season where he's fit, but at the moment he needs to find his place in the team and a way to affect every game he plays in (in the way Saka does) With us buying Vieira, who is much closer to Ødegaard than Emile Smith Rowe in style it makes me think Arteta doesn't see Emile Smith Rowe as a No.10. I'm not sure Emile Smith Rowe has ever fitted that well as an advanced 8, so that leaves the wide left role where I think Arteta prefers the more direct running of a Martinelli type right now. To be clear I'm not writing Emile Smith Rowe off but I could see a point in the future where a tempting offer might see us cash in if we need to

Are you on dial-up?? It got announced on the official site about 4 days ago! He's got the number 21. It's still on the front page.

This is what I said the other day.

Arteta plays 2 systems mostly and I don’t really see where Smithers will fit in either

1) A 4-3-3 with 1 holding type midfielder like xhaka flanked by 2 more creative number 10 box to box types ala city or Barca. I think this is the one he intends to prefer.

2) And a 4-2-3-1 where you have 2 pivot midfielders like partey and xhaka and one free spirit which is Ødegaard. We used this most last season

For formation 1 It hasn’t worked when he’s been played as 1 of the 2 attacking midfielders and the centre always looks unbalanced with him in it. He doesn’t offer enough support to the partey or xhaka type.

Then for 2 he has Ødegaard and now vieira in his way. Who looked to have better and more well rounded games to them where he seems to live for the final third.

You can play him on the left at a push but he’s not always convinced there and if we are bringing in more wide players that looks tough.

I think he needs to evolve his game somehow and if Arteta is committed to the 433 formation he wants and stays beyond next season you may see a transfer for him similar to Iwobi. To be honest a move to villa to replace grealish probably would have made sense for him.

Hi TG, Sorry I didn't see your post - or maybe I did and it stayed subconsciously in the back of my mind enough for me to post it as well. I hope he stays and carves out a proper role, having the extra European games will help get more game time

I think it’s a decent observation rich and I hope he stays 2 but I get the impression that due to way the way the manager sets the team up and his skill set he’s not really suited to us unless he evolves his game he will go. The question I posed to soc was if selling Smithers freed up enough cash to buy Reuben neves would you do it? I’d be sorely tempted

I wouldn't do Emile Smith Rowe for Neves - for me it would need to be a player who is really top class or has that potential to be really top class. Someone like Bellingham I'd be tempted

Emile Smith Rowe was our second highest scorer last season and our top scorer from open play. Not meaning to go all Bernardesque on it, but he scored 16% of our PL goals. This in a season in which he suffered injury/Covid. It would be crazy to sell him.

Says more about our strikers though than anything else that statement.

Not saying I don’t see his potential but I’m not sure where he slots into this side right now. A lot of those goals were scored before Ødegaard started really finding his feet in my opinion let alone Portuguese and Brazilian midfielders rocking up at our place that could be happening. He wasn’t getting many minutes towards the end of the season as it was.

I think we would be crazy to sell Emile Smith Rowe. He has so much potential. We need the depth. I see Southampton are asking for £75M for Ward-Prowse, and I would suggest slapping a fee like that on Emile.

Well he scored more goals than Gabriel Jesus who apparently is going to be our new striker. It may have been fitness issues that kept him out of the team towards the end of the season.

We will have lots of games next season so rotation will be needed. Unlike much of the sentiment expressed here, I'd have no issue with Smith-Rowe inter-changing with Ødegaard. We need to be be able to vary our play.

Going back to Gabriel Jesus, while Rich has posted a goals per minute stat that looks hugely impressive, it is very odd because in 5 full PL seasons, he has only hit double figures twice with his best season being 14 PL goals.

Well yeah, Because City decided to play Aguero ahead of Jesus and now Haaland he must be rubbish right?

Not sure I understand that logic. They are 2 world class footballers

Also nobody said they have too much of an issue with Smithers just Rich and I said we didn’t know where he fits in the side and long term you could see him leaving. Most of his goals last year were from the LW before martinelli emerged and before we were getting linked with Raphinha. He’s likely to have 2 players ahead of him in either position he plays in if the bloke from leeds turns up

Jesus scored 8 PL goals last season. He had nobody ahead of him for the centre forward role because Aguero had gone. Pep frequently chose to go with no centre forward instead. It goes without saying that I'd love Jesus to score a load of goals for us, but we are talking about a player who has gone on record as saying that he prefers to play wide rather than as a centre forward.

As for Smith-Rowe, I don't see why Martinelli should be viewed as ahead of him. I actually think Smith-Rowe is better as it happens, but both are very good young players with buckets of potential. BTW, Raphinha primarily plays on the right wing.

Wow! hahaha

In 1989, Zinedine Zidane began his senior professional career at French club Cannes, where he spent three years. In his first full season at the club, he helped them secure their first ever European football berth by qualifying for the UEFA Cup after finishing fourth in the league.
After three years at Cannes, he joined Bordeaux in 1992 where he played alongside fellow countrymen Christophe Duggary and Bixente Lizarazu.
In 1995, it was reported that Blackburn Rovers manager Kenny Dalglish made a move to sign Zidane but club owner Jack Walker decided to talk him out of it, saying: “Why do you want to sign Zidane when we have Tim Sherwood?”
Also, in 1996, Zidane was reportedly offered to Newcastle United for £1.2 million, but the club turned down the offer after watching him, claiming that he was not good enough to play in England's top flight division.
Zidane spent four years at Bordeaux before leaving for Juventus in 1996. During his time at Bordeaux, he won the 1995 Intertoto Cup and finished runner-up the 1995–96 UEFA Cup. He was also named Ligue 1 Player of the Season in 1995-96.

Barca have made an offer to Sevilla for Kounde. The offer is a £23m loan fee with an obligation to buy for a further £40m. Bordeuax, Kounde's former club have a 20% sell-on-clause and so they would only get 20% of the £40m and nothing from the £23m loan fee. Sneaky

I know there are clever accounting reasons for these loans with obligation to buys but I haven't quite understood them fully - other than the very basic defering a large chunk of the payment to further down the line. But this is done with any signing where the cost of the transfer is usually split in equal chunks across the length of the contract.

US Supreme Court strikes down right to abortion

https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-n ... index.html

Wow - They really did it.

America is literally going to end up doing The Purge aren’t they. That movies a prediction not a sci fi movie.

Worlds gone mad, basically democracies are unable to deal with the utter dickheads in their voting population who vote for stuff that obviously harms them.

Prediction. Just watch the ERG, UKIP, farage lot start championing this in the UK now at some point. Someone’s going there trust me

Here's a video of Vieira being given a tour of the Arsenal training facilities by Edu.

Edu comes across quite well in this I thought. Certainly a great ambassador for the club and the way he is speaking is very good. I bet he must be a big draw for the South American players we are speaking too

Horrifying.

Perhaps this and the ongoing revelations about Trump will galvanize the electorate. I don't think the world can survive another round of Trump or some other snake-oil merchant even further toward Taliban territory.

I’ll have a little wager with you that he returns a more than decent amount of goals next year if he turns up.

Feels to me like the moans last summer that Ramsdale had been relegated 3 times and Ben white was too small before neither had kicked a ball and I was urging people to reserve judgement.

Brazilian international ffs. Scored 4 goals in a premier league game, can’t be that bad honestly

A little video of Gabriel Jesus goals and skills. Clearly not an average player and I think he could easily go up another level.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiZXpyjZvwc

This is a much more interesting video about Gabriel Jesus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmlXlhDWR1Q

Jesus deal seems like a 9/10 certainty at the moment.

Hard to call on the others.
Seems like Raphinha is the one we’re going hardest for - maybe give that 6/10 at the moment

Martinez maybe 6/10 as well

The the strange one, Tielemans- seems like the one we could wrap up any time we want but we’ve allegedly put it on the back burner

Several sources reporting it's close to being done for around £45m - very good fee. Turned 25 not long ago, six seasons of PL experience, Brazilian international.

The only thing that puzzles me a little bit is that it looks like we might not go for an outright central midfielder. Martinez can play there, and the club might see Vieira as an option in the no 8 role, but I would've liked to see a top, top player come in for that position. Our record with and without Partey speaks for itself, when we can control the midfield we're at another level.

Still, if we get Jesus, Raphinha and Martinez over the line I certainly wouldn't complain, that would be an excellent window.

I wouldn’t give up on Tielemans yet. I think Arsenal are playing hard ball on that to knock down the price as much as possible towards the end of the window. 1 year left on his deal, Leicester can’t afford to lose him for free next year

Jesus, Raphinha, Martinez….plus Vieira, Turner and it’s easy to forget Saliba - little hype now but of we’d just bought him for £27m after the season he’d had at Marseille being voted young player of the year in France and in the French team of the season and just been capped - everyone would be very excited.

Those 6 would cost about £160m before any outgoings.

To compare to Spurs(as we need to) they’ve bought Perisic, Foster, Bissouma and will have to pay to make the Romero and Kulesevski deals permanent. So they’ve spent £100m to add just the first 3 in that list